ct8282 wrote:
Unless the price gets down to the £1000 mark I cant see why someone would choose this over the Nikon, Canon or Sony version.

In US Nikon version costs around $2400 and Canon version costs around the same as well. So at $1500 the tamron is only about 62% of the Canikon price. It is unrealistic to expect third party manufacturers to approach OEM quality and still sell it for say 30% of the OEM prices. Building high quality glass costs money, they don't have any magic to take that cost away I don't know how do they even manage current prices given that they won't even have the sales volume that Canon and Nikon have for their 70-200 lenses.

curious80 wrote:
In US Nikon version costs around $2400 and Canon version costs around the same as well. So at $1500 the tamron is only about 62% of the Canikon price. It is unrealistic to expect third party manufacturers to approach OEM quality and still sell it for say 30% of the OEM prices. Building high quality glass costs money, they don't have any magic to take that cost away I don't know how do they even manage current prices given that they won't even have the sales volume that Canon and Nikon have for their 70-200 lenses.

It's true that good glass cost money but the margins for professional glass are very high, which is why a Tamron or Sigma can sell equal or better quality glass for much less. The recent Sigma 35mm f/1.4 is a good example.

snapsy wrote:
It's true that good glass cost money but the margins for professional glass are very high, which is why a Tamron or Sigma can sell equal or better quality glass for much less. The recent Sigma 35mm f/1.4 is a good example.

Right but at $900 / 40% below the OEM it is already much less. Also when you cut the margins you expect to balance it with higher volume - but I don't think the Tamron 70-200 2.8 would have anywhere near the same sales volume as say the Tamron 17-50mm 2.8.

In case of Sigma 50mm 1.4, the sigma actually costs more than the Canikon versions. And Sigma 70-200 2.8 also started at around $1400 or more if I remember correctly. As third party manufacturers go up in quality they have to increase prices as well.

No real mention of focusing in review, bad sign. The first version was pretty useless in that department (based on personal experience) optically a match for the Nikkor. But focus was just about fast enough to track a tortoise and accurate enough on 747 or larger subjects, in other words you couldn't give me one
edit: just read other review, No focus limiter, raking through full range hmm

jofoto photo wrote:
No real mention of focusing in review, bad sign. The first version was pretty useless in that department (based on personal experience) optically a match for the Nikkor. But focus was just about fast enough to track a tortoise and accurate enough on 747 or larger subjects, in other words you couldn't give me one
edit: just read other review, No focus limiter, raking through full range hmm

You're correct about no focus limiter but they state that AF is improved to match Canon, Nikon

Autofocus Speed
This was the number one complaint of the older Tamron 70-200mm F/2.8 Di lens. Acquiring focus and tracking birds in flight was just painful. Tamron have really stepped it up with this version of the lens and it is on-par with the Nikon and Canon equivalents that we’ve tested. All of the images shot in this review were straight out of the box without any micro-adjustment.

If this test out as good as Tamron 70-300 VC it will be a real winner.